Antonietta Grassi awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

At first glance, the brightly coloured geometric paintings of Antonietta Grassi, BFA 94, appear purely abstract. But a closer look reveals that they often evoke textiles, machines, architecture or coded information.

The recurring fine lines that resemble woven fabric are no coincidence: Grassi’s mother was a garment worker and Grassi started out in the clothing industry as well. She was working as a colour researcher, textile designer and fashion designer when she decided to enroll in art-history night classes at Concordia.

“I’ve always loved the arts, but back then, I didn’t know that becoming an artist was an actual career path,” she recalls. “I was just taking those courses for myself.”

Grassi enjoyed her studies so much that she negotiated with her employer to get a day off each week in exchange for less pay. This allowed her to start taking studio art classes, before committing to a new path, becoming a full-time student in Concordia’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program.

It’s a time that she remembers fondly. “My teachers were all amazing,” she says. “They were all very well-known as practicing artists, but they made themselves accessible to students.”

In particular, she got to know Yves Gaucher, one of Canada’s leading abstract painters of the 20th century. “After graduating, I stayed in touch with him,” she says. “And he became my mentor until he passed away in 2000. He would come to my studio and we would have great conversations about art. I was lucky to have that: it was like a continuation of my Concordia experience.”

Grassi says Gaucher influenced her process, an intuitive approach that tends to result in work that is orderly yet expressive. “He would always say, ‘It’s not what you want; it’s what the painting wants,’” she explains. “I might start off thinking I’m going do one type of painting, and then that painting evolves as I ‘listen’ to it. It’s a push and pull that might end up somewhere surprising.”